Call on Me
by BatKate
Summary: Oracle gets an unexpected late night visitor.


_This is my surprise Christmas gift to Superblys on Tumblr because she loves Jason Todd. I was inspired partially by a particular past-RHatO writer's recent atrocious behavior and how I felt Jason would react to someone like that. I also love writing Red Hood and Oracle interacting._

* * *

Barbara was immediately on edge when she heard the emergency ringer go off. That phone line always got her worried but especially on nights where the girls were off-duty. If they needed to use the line tonight, then things could really be … no, she thought. She couldn't afford to second guess. It was about action. And with that, she picked up the line.

"Hello?"

"Hey O," came the voice on the other line. A male voice.

Barbara blinked. "Hood?"

"The one and only," he said, his voice crackling through the phone, "although I'm not in uniform tonight."

She blinked again. "Why are you calling me?"

"Well, you did give me this number."

When Barbara didn't respond, he continued.

"And I was in your neighborhood and —"

"Hood," she sighed, putting her hand to her eyes, "What did I tell you when I gave you this number?"

Jason coughed. "Um—"

"The emergency line is for emergencies, Hood. Not for chatting or dicking around." She had been encountering Jason Todd more and more over the past year, but she had given him the number only after he had helped her team out of a bind last month. After years of uneasy communication, giving him the number was a token of trust from one ex-Batkid to another. She was starting to regret—

"You didn't let me finish," Jason said, pulling her out of her thoughts. "I was in the neighborhood when I got into a bit of a … kerfuffle and I might need your help."

She squinted her eyes. "What sort of kerfuffle?"

"Check out your front door."

Barb switched to camera 1-A looking down at the main entrance to her building. Looking up at her was a phone-holding, bloody and battered Jason Todd.

"Think you could ring me up?" he asked.

* * *

"So, are we going to talk about it?" she asked as she closed her refrigerator and rolled back to the now shirtless Jason sitting at her table.

"What, the clear sexual tension between us?"

She slapped the raw steak on the left side of his face and took some satisfaction in the "Ow" he muttered a moment later.

"Hold it there to keep the swelling down," she said, going to get the rest of her supplies.

"I know," he said, his mouth still against the meat, "this isn't my first fight, Barbie."

"No kidding, Jay," she called back to him. Even if she didn't know who he was and what he did, the scar tissue told her everything.

"It's really not that bad," she said once she had gotten to work on his other wounds, "Besides the shiner, there's mostly just that bruise on your side and this cut." She lightly dabbed his cheek with the antibacterial ointment, making him wince. She put more on, this time applying it a little more gently. She worked in silence finishing up.

He finally broke it. "I was helping a girl."

Barbara looked up from her work. "A girl?"

Jason nodded, looking down at his fingers. "I was walking near the bus stop on Balmer Avenue and this girl was getting harassed by this douchebag. And I'm not talking whistle as he walked by, I mean full out telling her to have sex with him. With various approaches in a very short amount of time," he said with a grimace. "He was quite … creative in his descriptions."

"Jay…"

"She was absolutely terrified by this prick," he continued, his voice becoming more and more strained, "She was just sitting there trying not to make eye contact because she was clearly worried about him doing something worse to her and he knew he could get away with saying more shit to her. He knew he could and so he kept pushing her and pushing her and I just can't stand that, you know?" He looked up at her with those sad eyes. "So," he said, looking back down at where his free hand was picking at her table, "when the bus came and he was about to follow her onto it, I did the only thing I could think of … I pulled him back and socked him. The bus sped off with the girl on it and I was left with a misogynist prick who apparently knows how to hit a guy."

Silence filled the room again. This time it was Barbara who broke it.

"Why didn't you want to tell me before?"

He shrugged. "Didn't want you to think I just got in a fight for the hell of it. I know you guys think I'm a troublemaker. But I don't just stir shit up for no reason."

"I never thought you did."

He looked up with her, clearly trying to suppress his smirk. "Never?"

The video footage of Jason taking a bazooka to Black Mask's office building came to mind. "Okay, nearly never," she said with her own smile.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Barbara called from the other room a half hour later, "I have a spare bed."

"I'll remember that for next time," he call back to her from the living room, "but I should get back. My guns miss me when I'm gone too long."

Barbara rolled into the main room just in time to see him put his shirt back on. And while there was an age difference and the history, she was more than a little grateful that he had his back to her — he had a nice back.

Jason turned back to face her — his eye and cheek were dark from the growing bruise, but the swelling had gone down.

"But really," he said, "thank you." And then he smiled.

"Well," she cleared her throat, "I thought you should know that while you did need help, I don't think what happened really constitutes an emergency."

"It doesn't?" he played along.

She shook her head. "No, not quite. But …" She held out a card, which he took and read.

"My personal number," she explained when he didn't answer, "You know, just in case you get in trouble again."

His eyes went to hers and he put the card in his jacket pocket."Yes," he said as he put the card in his pocket, "Just in case."

She led him out.

"Welp," Jason said as he opened the door out to the hallway, "a pleasure as always, O."

It was only when he was halfway to the elevator that Barbara thought of it.

"Hey," she called out from the doorway, "why were you in the neighborhood, anyway?"

Jason smiled. "Talk to you later, Barbie," he said before stepping into the elevator.


End file.
